by Rena Marks
Amanda took a deep breath and nodded. But then shrieks curled her toes. Beast, Renegade, Pax, and Steele curled up on the floors, hands over their heads as they howled.
“What is happening to them?”Amanda screamed to be heard over the din of shrieks. “Hold them,” she instructed the other Xeno Sapiens standing around.
Robyn pulled up their cyborg connections.
“Their brain waves are all wrong. The patterns are sharp—unlike anything I’ve seen so far. It’s only Esson Four—none of the others are affected…”
Beast’s incredible strength began to buck the men off him.
“Hold him down,” Amanda shouted to three of the newer Xeno Sapiens. “He’s too strong.”
“Oh my god, they’re working remotely,” Robyn yelled.
Just then, the screaming stopped. All four men, Renegade, Beast, Pax, and Steele lay still, their eyelids fluttering wildly.
The only sound in the room was the deep breathing of everyone.
“What do you mean, working remotely?” Amanda asked, in a calmer tone of voice.
“I’d say Meade and his cronies discovered we released the news and booked it double-time to get back. They’re within range to activate some type of remote device. It’s on a separate wavelength for these four since the rest of you weren’t affected. Or maybe they’re even searching for the wavelength for the other eighteen as we speak.”
“What was the point of it?”
“Remember the whole raise testosterone for violence thing? They just stimulated the hypothalamus region of the brain.”
“So something here has to be giving them power for the remote source.” Amanda eyed the storage closets around the room.
“Yes,” Robyn whispered. “The only place I didn’t have time to explore was this level—the small room underneath the elevator shaft. I bet that’s where the power source is. It also means the original plan of blowing the place up is still on board and was an excellent theory. Load everyone up and get them onto the elevator. When you’re a safe distance up, I’ll lock the doors down here. Make sure you run from the elevator as soon as the doors open. Hurry, I have to lock the building from the outside to keep Meade and everyone from getting to the elevator and stopping the ascent.”
“A half an hour? What about you?” Sunny asked.
Robyn smiled grimly, tearing away from Amanda’s eyes. “Don’t worry about me. Get yourselves to safety. Once I have everything on lockdown and set the feeds to watch, I’ll jump on the elevator shaft cables and climb. I’ve done it before, it’s nothing new to me, plus it’ll go faster.”
Amanda would know this was impossible. Not only was her strength gone, but if the elevator was blocking the top level, there would be no way she could get around it to get out before the bombs blasted. But hell, she didn’t want the Xeno Sapiens to be any more stressed out and try to prevent a death they couldn’t.
She led them to the elevator while everyone packed in, carrying the four unconscious bodies in. They laid them on the floor.
“In just a few minutes the live feeds will hit, after I set the bombs below,” Robyn said, and hit the door closed. “Be well.”
She used the last of her human adrenaline—which felt worthless now that the Zetan strength was gone, but it was all she had—to grab a couple bombs in each hand and haul them carefully to the elevator shaft. From Level One, she forced the doors open to the empty shaft. A series of blinking lights would be the source of whatever they had controlling the cybernetics in the Xeno Sapiens. She set the two bombs in the hallway, needing to make sure they would be close enough to whatever the remote source was. Then took the stairs up to the main lobby and began to start the underground internet feeds.
It dawned on her that if Meade had time to reach his contact at the government, they would be smart to shut down the internet connection for the labs. She prayed her luck would hold out.
Chapter Thirteen
The lobby was a ghost town. Eerily quiet with everyone but her evacuated. In an odd sense, the silence seemed deafening. She struggled with wanting to hear something, anything. The ticking of a clock. The chirping of a cricket. Not this deadened vacuum suck.
Robyn slammed the outer security door to the elevator closed. The booming clang of the metal filled the halls and gave her a small sense of satisfaction. Roughly she jerked on it to make certain the automatic locks engaged. Another clanging sound ensued with the jerk, though not as satisfying.
When the door didn’t budge, she released it and opened the control panel on the wall. Damn, she had gotten too used to the Xeno Sapien strength, and now that it was gone, she was feeling the pain of existing on the numbing drag of her human qualities.
A series of codes dropped a keyboard from the panel, and she hacked into the live feed of free internet which showed the view of the entire lobby. There. It was done. The entire world would watch as Crested Ute Labs attacked her.
And probably killed her. She sucked in a deep breath. At least he—they—would be safe. Were they safe? Had he woken? She had to know, at least that much. It would be the last image of Steele she ever had.
Would he regret that he was so angry in the last few days before her death? That they never discussed their relationship? She hoped not. She hoped he realized he couldn’t control what was being done to him.
On a whim, she reversed the feed so she could check on the elevator’s ascent, perhaps see his image one last time. As soon as the image popped up, she heaved a sigh of relief. Steele, Renegade, Beast and Pax were up and about.
“Amanda, we remember everything. From before,” Renegade was saying. “We were in constant telepathic communication the entire time we were incapacitated.”
Amanda looked pale. “You remember being alive two months ago?”
“Every single day. Where is Robyn?” Renegade asked, but then Steele cut in.
“Where is she? Did she flee after the truth came out that you two were the ones to revive us again, after our slaughter?” Steele barked at Amanda.
Not surprisingly, Renegade came to her defense. “Leave it,” Renegade snarled. “They revived us, but they didn’t cause our deaths in the first place.”
“You defend them? You are weak with whatever you have been bred with. They sat there and watched us die.”
Beast cut in. “That doesn’t mean they had any say in it. Neither one of them jumped up and pushed the buttons that Meade or the others did. They were frozen in their chairs, as if paralyzed.” His fists clenched as he stepped in closer to Steele. A vein throbbed in Steele’s forehead, and his eyes flashed. He looked like he was going to attack Beast.
Amanda held her hand out. “Stop it. This…red-hot emotion isn’t real. It’s an effect from the implant used to stimulate your brain. Someone has remote access to stimulate your aggression. It’s making you paranoid and suspicious.”
Continued snarls were her only response.
“Listen to me,” she said sharply. “I need you all to focus! Do you want to learn about what was done to you, or not?”
Everyone else quieted, looking toward her. A few nodded their heads.
“From what Robyn and I could figure out, the download you received earlier was to deliberately revert you to a caveman like status. With the females, it would have meant you would have become more sexual, trying to entice males to manipulate. But for this round, they only used it on the Esson Four group. You’re feeling the effects of the increased aggression only. We don’t know if another pulse is coming for the other eighteen, but Robyn loaded us all up to the surface so she could find the source. It’s going to take required effort to become conscious of your reactions. When you realize you’re behaving out of character, stop. Acknowledgment is the first step. Second, breathe deep. This will counteract the rush of adrenaline that is already circulating throughout your systems. Third, count to ten before responding in any way. This gives your brain a chance to think about your reaction, instead of your body taking over with gut instinct.”
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“Why should we trust you?” Steele said, but his voice was calmer. “We have no idea what kind of life is waiting for us on the surface.”
“You don’t have a choice. You were scheduled for termination. This time your brain will fry. You either trust Robyn and me, or not, but there’s no coming back from this.”
“Termination? Again?” Steele sneered. “The threat is getting old.”
“I know you believe Robyn and I were solely responsible for your revivals. But we had no idea you’d lived before we ever did it the first time. Trust me, we would have both refused on ethics alone. And the second time, we had no choice during your death. We were as much prisoners as you were, drugged into a state of paralysis. We could try to revive you and help you escape, or we could refuse to revive anyone and be killed immediately. We both chose the first option.”
“Where is she? And where are we?” His head swiveled around, looking at the small room that contained them. All the Xeno Sapiens stood around, blocking the view of the walls.
“We’re on the sub-elevator. She’s downstairs making sure the outer doors are locked so we can ride all the way to the surface for safety. It takes thirty minutes, and since Meade and his team are on the way back, they’ll stop the elevator before we can ever reach the top ground if they penetrate the building. Robyn is making sure that doesn’t happen.”
Robyn traced Steele’s image with her finger. At least he remembered. When the aggression finally tempered from his system, he would remember the love they shared the first time around. At least, she hoped.
It was time to let go of what couldn’t be. She switched the feed to show the lobby again. And then she realized her mistake. While she was engrossed in watching the events on the elevator play out like a soap opera, the car had pulled up.
Chapter Fourteen
They were here. This was it.
She stared in stunned disbelief through the clear glass walls, finding the gaze of Bobby, Dr. Meade’s nephew, watching her every move. Another lab tech, Abe, stood with him. There was also Ted, and Benjamin.
None of the directors.
Laser fire outside cut through her shock. She watched in horror as the light began to reflect inside of the walls.
Son of a gun. These weren’t the stun lasers they normally kept. They were illegally modified cutting lasers, able to cut through anything, given enough time.
Robyn reeled, horrified at the realization. She flipped the outside speakers on so she could hear what was happening. From outside, she could hear the men laugh and the slap of hands as if they congratulated each other. She grabbed the emergency bar and slammed it down. It had been added as an extra lock in case security cards were breached. But for now, it wouldn’t do much if they managed to cut through the steel of the enforced door. She just prayed they didn’t know it was only a matter of time.
She had to distract them for at least a half hour while the others made it up to the surface.
Another man, the biggest of the four, pointed his gun directly at the enforced glass and yelled, “Open up.”
“Go to hell.” Robyn knew the glass would hold. The building had been designed to withstand the pressure of the deep blue. She raised her middle finger while pressing down the comm button with her other hand to give them the ability to hear her clearly. Normally she’d be able to hear them, but they couldn’t hear inside.
“It’s laserproof, you ass.”
“You fucking self-righteous cunt,” one of them shouted. He aimed his weapon at her face and fired straight at her, the evil in his eyes sending a chill down her spine.
She flinched but the glass didn’t break. The laser light broke into small sparks and bounced from the glass in a small cascade of fireworks, but the glass didn’t even crack.
However, it did well to distract his buddies from aiming their lasers at the doors. They watched him, snickering.
“Our lives are ruined because of you. I’m going to make you pay,” Bobby shouted.
“Do your best,” Robyn said, muting the live feed so she could type a series of commands into the keyboard. When the rest of the world could no longer hear, she said, “I’ll make sure to wipe out your life insurance as well. Your wife will have to work on the Earth ground to support herself while you rot in prison.” After baiting him, she unmuted the feed to enable the hearing again.
“You fucking cunt!” His fat fist sailed toward the glass, but of course it didn’t penetrate.
“I’m a bitch? What would the world think of you helping your uncle create a sub species of human right under their noses? Treating them worse than you would a common animal? Thinking to create another line from pets?”
“The world isn’t gonna find out. I’m gonna snuff you out if it’s the last thing I do.”
“Since your career is ruined, seems like it would be the last thing you do.”
She knew she pushed them, but as long as they stayed where they were, making threats, they couldn’t think fast enough to know she lagged behind long enough for the others to reach the surface. Of course, they were also too stupid to wonder where the other lab techs were.
Apparently uncle didn’t share everything with Bobby. He had him return to the underground lab to make sure she was snuffed out…and didn’t bother to tell him a bomb was set and ticking. Bobby wasn’t that brave.
Abe, who’d aimed at her earlier, cut loose with his weapon. Robyn winced and flinched from each loud blasting of light that flickered and smoked. If nothing else, her very tangible fear was giving the internet a show. Nothing in the world was as effective as live streaming, especially when no one could figure where the source came from. Abe was relentless as he kept firing. A few more scorch marks appeared but the glass held. It wouldn’t be long before they figured out to move back to the metal door and would cut through that.
The others whispered something amongst themselves and then opened fire again at the window, this time in unison, as if perhaps thinking a multiple-weapon attack would break it. Robyn’s heart pounded. She covered her ears to protect them from the loud noises and wished the live feed sounded as dramatic as the jack hammering of the thick glass walls. She backed farther from the windows, showing she was in fear of them breaking. Not that she wasn’t scared, but she had to give the viewers enough body language in case the sound wasn’t viable.
Plus, as long as the idiots were distracted, they wouldn’t figure out the door was penetrable. She’d rather blow to smithereens with them than be raped once they got inside.
The lights of the lasers suddenly stopped. She watched the men form a huddle to talk. One of them broke away to run toward the vehicles, jumping into the passenger seat as if riffling through the glove compartments. If he thought using one of the old employee identification cards would help them get in, he would be disappointed. She had changed the codes as soon as she’d released the gas upstairs.
Her stomach churned as grins split the men’s faces. They looked deliberately toward her and, while holding her eyes, slowly moved out of the way. The man behind the wheel of the hover car started it and positioned the car on the runway to point at the lab. Her stomach churned, a sick feeling pitting in the furthest depths. Suddenly she knew what he planned to do. The driver stomped on the gas. The car lurched forward, jumped the paved runway, and barreled up the sidewalk that led right to the double, glass walls.
“Shit!” Robyn screamed as she stumbled back. No matter how much she knew that the glass was certified unbreakable, it was still nerve-shattering. She wondered what people watching the live stream thought. Wondered if their hearts pounded as hard as hers.
The sound hurt her ears when the car reached and crashed into the doors. Why he aimed for the metal, she’d never know. She slipped and ended up flat on her back, sprawled across the floor. She watched smoke rise from the damaged front-end of the car as the engine died. The glass walls held but as her gaze lifted upward, to her dismay, she realized the impact had created a good five-inch gap of buckled doorfr
ame at the top.
The idiot builders had compromised and used a type of plastic to encase the doorframe for esthetics.
“Oh, God.” Robyn muttered, stunned as she stared. There was no way they weren’t going to notice that.
The windows hadn’t broken, but the building holding them in place had. She continued to sit there until the three men pulled the driver out of the trashed car. He looked dazed—a streak of blood running across his cheek—but the airbag had saved him from severe injury. The four men studied the damage to the top of the doorframe, grinned, and then simultaneously aimed the laser guns around the doorframe.
Robyn struggled to her feet and ran for the computer integrated intercom system. Now, it was only a matter of time before the world watched her grisly death.
Chapter Fifteen
She quickly programmed the cameras to swivel automatically by tracing heat signatures and then ran, jumping into the enclosure at the middle of the room that housed a giant fish tank of dead specimens permanently floating in a thick gel preservative. Inside the cupboards were a slew of tools used around the lobby, a large knife, a screwdriver with a long shaft, even a hammer. She grabbed the knife, holding it tightly in her hands.
“Come on out here and face the music, you uppity bitch,” a voice taunted. He started yanking open cabinet doors and drawers along the walls, deliberately trashing the place, tossing specimens and whole collections onto the marble floor.
The body of a fish, floating in its brine, splashed across the floor on a flood of pickled guts as it rolled toward her.
Robyn held herself quiet, knowing his words were to torment her enough to give up her location. Her entire body trembled. Her hand clutched the knife hard enough for the handle to dig into her sweaty palm. She forced herself to relax her hold a bit. She closed her eyes and listened as he banged things. Suddenly something slammed on top of the cabinet counters above her. She bit back a sudden inhalation of breath and snapped her eyes open.
